Clementine Ford

Almost 25 years ago, American feminist and scholar Susan Faludi published her seminal work Backlash. With astounding precision, Faludi detailed the numerous ways the feminist movement had been undermined and set upon by those who would like to see it fail.

Faludi’s tome is compulsory reading for anyone who wishes to understand how the beneficiaries of structural power – from individuals to political ideologies to corporations – resist efforts to liberate the people exploited by such things.

Faludi’s backlash continued well into the start of the 21st century, when young feminists like me forged our politics against a tableau of disinterest and apathy. By then we were being spoon-fed the lie that feminism was over. Equality had been achieved, and anything that remained was just the ranting lunacy of man-hating lesbians.

And it would have continued to work too, were it not for the internet – the new home of a fertile and robust political ideology that can no longer be silenced or controlled.

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With the exception of a handful of conservative ideologues, newspapers have ceased publishing sombre headlines that pretend to lament the feminist apathy of the youth.

And politicians and commentators have caught on. Even our Prime Minister, who has a comprehensive public record of undermining women’s capabilities and purpose, has taken to falsely declaring himself a feminist, hoping it will curry favour with the women whose support has always eluded him.

Conservative commentators suffer the whiplash that comes from swinging wildly between two opposing positions: the one in which they are most comfortable, ie the regular ridiculing of feminists for caring about seemingly overblown issues such as rape and violence; and the one that brings them the most amount of schadenfreude, the chastising of those same feminists for ignoring the "real sexism" exercised against conservative women who, it seems, are not required to have the same backbone and buck-up attitude demanded of the others.

Which brings us to Jacqui Lambie and the storm of outrage over the "sexist double standard" that her preference for "well-hung" men apparently embodies. Appearing as a guest on Hobart’s Heart 107.3FM, the newly elected senator was asked what she looks for in a romantic partner.

“They must have heaps of cash and they have got to have a package between their legs – let’s be honest. And I don’t need them to speak ... the perfect man.”

Later, Senator Lambie reportedly asked a 22-year-old caller – who’d phoned in as a prospective suitor – if he was "well-hung".

"Like a donkey," the lad replied.

That the conversation was crass and inappropriate is not in question. Public representatives are elected to represent and speculation about their bedroom activities is of no importance to anybody.

But the fallout from this particular incident has provided remarkable insight into the way public perception of inequality has shifted to incorporate the (false) binary of two equal and opposing forces.

Painted as a gross example of sexism, Senator Lambie has reported that her office staff have been subjected to abusive phone calls and missives.

3AW’s Neil Mitchell took to his microphone to iterate the new bleating of the faux-concerned right: where oh WHERE are the feminists in all this, and why are they staying SILENT? (One can’t help but wonder why, if speaking out against sexism and discrimination weighs so heavily on Mitchell’s mind, he is comfortable with accepting a handsome pay cheque year after year from a commercial radio station whose presenter roster and management team has more leathery balls than an AFL season.)

In this gleeful belief that Angry Women have scored themselves an own goal, people have been asking how we would react had a man responded in this way.

But a man – a Serious Politician, no less – wouldn’t have been asked this question. Serious Men in Serious Jobs are not routinely interrogated about their sexual habits.

Their singledom isn’t held aloft as evidence of their sad, shrivelled-up selves, their pointlessness in a society that will agree to listen to them as long as there’s something decent to look at too.

Making a crass joke about dick size is hardly a "double standard" when you consider the thousands of years women have had to contend with having their bodies commodified and subject to ownership while their minds and influence have been studiously kept out of the upper echelons of power.

This is what the new backlash looks like. Instead of ridiculing critics of sexism as they once did, the beneficiaries of power have begun to claim an equal and opposite degree of oppression for themselves.

Now women are being asked to swallow the pernicious lie that there are two sides to every story and that injustice occurs on a fair and even battleground. It doesn't. Lambie's expression of fancy for a well-hung man may have been crude and impolitic, but it doesn't contribute to a deeply insidious rhetoric that tells men their greatest contribution to the world is in how they can physically service others.

These distinctions matter. We are at risk of allowing discrimination to be repackaged as something that arbitrarily and equally affects all people while being perpetrated by none.

Lambie can pine for a well-hung man on FM radio all she likes – it doesn’t change the fact the majority of people presenting those shows, running those stations and being paid big money to dominate the public conversation are men.

Nor does it change the fact the vast majority of her political colleagues, those people preselected by parties long before the public get to have a say, are men.

Criticise her for having not yet figured out how, as an Australian senator, to have appropriate conversations with members of the media. But to charge her with perpetrating a disgraceful and hypocritical sexism? As if the routinely subjugated are capable of wielding power in the same way as those either doing or benefiting from the subjugating.

Get your hand off it, boys.

Clementine Ford is a freelance journalist.

210 comments so far

Blah Blah Blah .... I thought what she said was refreshing and funny and perhaps a teensy bit tasteless for an elected official. However, if a male politician said that he wanted a rich woman with a tight pussy (and yes we are talking about the same genital area). He would have been crucified. Feminists have raised the bar on abolishing sexism - and a good thing too - but all I read out of this is 'boo hoo - we poor women are still victims and we will forever be - because we will continue to cry about the past instead of looking to the future.

Commenter

Stephen O'Shea

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 25, 2014, 1:21AM

@Stephen O'Shea - 1.21 am ''However, if a male politician said that he wanted a..." Stephen, I'm wondering just how many male politicians would be asked those sorts of questions when the journalists/ radio hosts/ media don't seem to have a problem with asking women those sort of questions? Are there any question like that (asked of men) out there in the public arena?

Commenter

Jump

Date and time

July 25, 2014, 9:40AM

More leathery balls? Really? If you are the face of the feminist movement then we can see why there is so much trouble for women can't we - if you want equality and respect give it.

Commenter

Huh

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 25, 2014, 9:42AM

Agree she should get her hand off it..... And I am a woman we can't have it both ways

Commenter

Julie scanlan

Date and time

July 25, 2014, 9:44AM

So Ms Ford, you admit that there is one rule for blokes, and one rule for sheilas!

Men must be respectful, non judgemental, polite and never (ever!) objectify women.

Women, however, can be crude, rude, demean men and discuss the size of their appendages and pay packets freely and without recourse.

You justify this blatant double standard on the basis of women have been on the receiving end before, so now men should be too.

Sorry, but I believe in equality - and that works both ways. Your position does nothing more than demonstrate the feminist movement (or at least your interpretation of it) is not about equality, but it is about making men inferior and the objects of derision - perhaps "enacting revenge" is an apt summary.

The rush to defend Lambie has probably done more to harm women's equality than to help it! If women want to be treated equally, fairly and with dignity (as they should) then it is only reasonable that men get the same in return.

Commenter

rob1966

Date and time

July 25, 2014, 10:16AM

What upsets me and I think really disappoints most men, men of all colours and race, is that we have missed yet again a perfect opportunity to have a sensible and intelligent discussion about a question that has been bothering and seriously affecting men through out the ages. Its not often that we get a chance to discuss something that effects all men equally, across race lines, of all ages and this article is a perfect example of the contempt in which we men feel we are held by women. The question that needs to be discussed is of course: Does size matter??? Why won't women discuss it???

Commenter

Does it really matter

Date and time

July 25, 2014, 10:16AM

+1And they deny all the suffering and discrimination that men endured throughout history, much of which has resulted in the technology and political structures that have allowed women the lives they lead today. Imperfect as they are.

Commenter

JohnA

Date and time

July 25, 2014, 10:52AM

Not sure why she was ever asked the question in the first place, and can't imagine a man being asked the same question. Inappropriate all round.

Commenter

LucyX

Date and time

July 25, 2014, 11:20AM

I don't give a rats Glutious Maximus about Lambie's comments on radio. Crass?..perhaps, but big deal..she was asked a question and she answered it. As a Senator, maybe she should not have said it, but then again, she is human with her own thoughts and ideas. What does disturb me is that had a man stated the equivalent, like wanted a woman with loads of cash and a tight kitty, imagine the scene that would create? So for me, its not so much what Lambie said..good on her, it's society's double standard. Some people need to get over themselves and the notion of constant political correctness etc.

Commenter

Romstar

Location

QLD

Date and time

July 25, 2014, 12:33PM

Anyone reading this ridiculous article should remember that Tony Abbott simply has to look at his watch to elicit the most strident denunciation from Ford and other polemicists of the Left.

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